(dramatic music)
- Welcome to The 700 Club.
Hurricane warnings are ineffect along the Louisiana coast
as Tropical Storm Barry began hitting
parts of the state early today.
- People there are getting ready,
and forecasters say it'sexpected to bring heavy rains
and widespread flooding.
George Thomas brings us the story.
- [George] Thousands of Louisianans
are breaking out sandbagsor fleeing to higher ground
as Tropical Storm Barry threatens to turn
to the first hurricane of the season.
- This is gonna be a major weather event
for a huge portion ofthe state of Louisiana.
- [George] Clarence Brocks has lived here
in Plaquemines Parish for 65 years.
He has lived through Hurricane Katrina,
and like so many residents,isn't taking any chances.
- And we lost everythingand we started from scratch.
But we didn't lose everythingwe still had our lives
and our health.
- [George] The forecastshows Barry making landfall
as a tropical storm.
And because it's a very slow moving system
which could stay in thearea longer than usual,
authorities are warning residents
to brace for serious rainfalland widespread flooding,
posing a huge potential testof New Orleans' flood defenses.
- Already the ground's re-saturated,
the Mississippi running very, very high
to portions of Louisiana
and it's not gonna take thatmuch to produce problems.
But we are talking aboutvery heavy rainfall,
the potential for a foot or two of rain
along into the east of the track.
And notice it's onlyslowly making it's move off
toward the north.
- [George] Hurricane warnings are up
for most of the Louisianacoast as the weather system
has already brought dangerous storm surge,
heavy rains, and gusty winds to city.
- Well, I'm more concerned'cause if it turns to the east
and we're on the wrong side of it,
you have a lot of rain, youhave a lot of flooding going on.
- [George] So the state'sgovernor's telling folks
to get ready and not waituntil the last moment.
- I am encouraging, I'memploying residents to prepare.
- [George] Parts of the regioncould get up to 25 inches
of rainfall makingmatters more precarious,
the Mississippi River is alreadyat extremely high levels,
above 16 feet in some places.
In New Orleans where 50levees failed back in 2005
during Hurricane Katrina, the city's mayor
is warning residents that water
is gonna be their biggest threat.
- We do expect that thisstorm will be slow moving.
We're gonna get heavyrainfall for up to 48 hours.
- In low lying areaslike Plaquemine's Parish,
some 10,000 people havebeen ordered to evacuate
ahead of the storm.
Tropical Storm Barry isexpected to make landfall
sometime between late Fridaynight into Saturday afternoon.
George Thomas, CBN News.
- Well, New Orleans certainlyneeds to get prepared
for this because if you'retalking two feet of rain
on top of historic levelsat the Mississippi River,
that's a recipe for disaster.
Operation Blessing isalready prepositioning teams
to provide relief work.
If you'd like to donate
to our Operation BlessingDisaster Relief Fund
you can write us at CBNCenter, Virginia Beach,
Virginia, 23463 or youcan call us right now,
1-800-700-7000.
Well in other news the federal deficit
is going to be much higher this year.
It's expected, get this, toreach one trillion dollars.
John Jessup has that storyfrom our CBN News Bureau
in Washington, John?
- That is right, Gordon, the government
is getting closer tohitting that debt limit
quicker than expected and that could force
an early vote in Congressraising the debt ceiling.
CBN's Capitol HillCorrespondent, Abigail Robertson
brings us that story.
- Well, many lawmakersthink with the U.S. Treasury
set to run out of borrowingmoney by mid-September,
just a few legislativedays after they return
from August recess, theycan't wait until the brink
to vote to raise the debt ceiling
and some like Senator Chris Coons advocate
it's time to eliminate thedebt ceiling all together.
- For us to default onAmerican's sovereign debt
would have significant consequences.
One of the reasons that more countries
and more investors around the world
invest in American treasury instruments
is because we are seen asthe most reliable issuer
of government debt on earth.
And to default on that debtwould certainly harm that
and increase our costs of borrowing.
Folks who think we shouldcontinue to have a debt ceiling
and be forced to vote on the debt ceiling
believe that becausethey're concerned as I am
about our deficits and our national debt.
But we should find responsibleand bipartisan mechanisms
to put in place reductions inour spending and our deficits.
Coming right up against the debt ceiling,
playing chicken with ourdebt ceiling year after year
is not the right way to do this.
- Neither Speaker ofthe House, Nancy Pelosi
or Senate Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell
have indicated yet whether or not
we'll see a vote to addressthe issue this month
or if they'll hold off until September.
- Thanks, Abigail.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is calling
on Hispanic evangelicals toplead with President Trump
to stop this weekend'splanned raids of deportations
of illegal immigrants across the country.
This after she creditedHispanic evangelicals
for the President's decision
to call off the firstround of deportations.
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- When he announced thisbefore I called, God bless you,
some people of faithabout this, evangelicals
who support the Presidentfor other reasons
but who have been good onimmigration issues usually
and basically they werevery concerned that this
goes too far because these raids
were not what they signedup for with President Trump
and I think their calls to the President
made a difference.
- [Reporter] Will youappeal to the President
though to put off these raids?
- I'm gonna appeal to the people of faith,
the faith based organizationsto appeal to the President.
I think that, they put him in office
and they have a better voice for this.
- Pelosi said evangelical leaders told her
many of the familiesfacing deportation Sunday
will be in church.
- Well, a Republican running for governor
in the state of Mississippisparked a media firestorm
for refusing to let a female reporter
go on a 15 hour campaignride along with him
unless she agreed to bring a colleague.
Mississippi State RepresentativeRobert Foster says
he was following the Billy Graham rule
and had promised his wifehe would never be alone
with another woman.
Reporter Larrison Campbell told CNN,
she felt she was being treatedas a sexual object first
and a reporter second.
CBN News asked Foster in a phone interview
if his campaign couldhave accommodated Campbell
by bringing along another staff member.
He told us the situation escalated before
they got the chance.
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- She felt like it was apersonal attack against her
and it never really got to the point
of us trying to negotiateor work out those details
before it went viral almost, I guess,
that it was issue of mediscriminating against her,
sexism and all of thefeminists went nuts about it
and we just haven'teven had an opportunity
to get to the point of us
trying to work out the minor details.
- Foster added he understandswhy Campbell might be offended
but said his vow to his wife
and faith supersedes anyone's feelings.
Well, after a number of complaints
of bias by social media companies,
President Trump hosteda group of conservatives
at the White House Thursday
where he told them the tech giants
won't get away with it much longer.
Jennifer Wishon brings us that story.
(dramatic music)
- The President's signaledsocial media giants
should brace for tough actionsfrom his administration
as he traded censorship stories
with a crowd of conservatives
and demonstration tensionsbetween those conservatives
in the mainstream mediathere was even a scuffle
in the Rose Garden.
It happened as theconservatives at the summit
waited alongside theWhite House press corp
for the President to make a statement.
- Rose Garden if you'd rather meet me!
- Get in the Rose Garden.
- [Woman] Get him, Gorka, get him!
- You are a punk, you're not a journalist,
you're a punk!
- Go home, go home!- Gorka, Gorka!
- Hey, Gorka, get a job!
- [Jennifer] An explosionat the end of a day
where conservative activists, thinkers
and influencers enjoyed anopen and sympathetic ear
from the President.
- Together you reach more people
than any televisionbroadcast network by far,
not even close.
- [President] While LilaRose shared how her group,
Live Action has been permanentlybarred from Pinterest,
had viral videos buried on YouTube
and that's not all.
- We have been for four years banned
from doing any advertising on Twitter
and they told us that in orderto reinstate our accounts,
we'd have to stopcalling for the defunding
of Planned Parenthood andsharing our pro-life content.
- [Jennifer] Stories like hers are common.
- The Daily Signalpublished a video last year
with a pediatriciantalking about the dangers
of giving puberty blockers to kids.
The video went viral on Facebook,
in fact it reached 70 million views,
when all of a sudden itdisappeared and we took our case
to Facebook, we said whydid you take this down
off of your platform?
It took Facebook a littlewhile to get back to us
but eventually they did restore the video
and apologized for doing that.
- [Jennifer] A Hill TVAmerican Barometer survey
in December found 58% of voters
thinks social networks areunfair to conservatives.
The same poll foundgeneration Z, folks born
in the mid-1990's and early 2000's
are the only age group thatbelieves social media companies
are not biased against conservatives.
A Missouri Republican Senator Josh Hawley
says enough is enough.
- Google, Facebook,Twitter, they've gotten
these special deals from government,
they've gotten a special give away
from government, they'retreated unlike anybody else.
If they wanna keep their special deal,
here's the bargain, theyhave to quit discriminating
against conservatives, youagree with that, no more!
- Senator Hawley has introduced a bill
that requires these big tech companies
to prove their algorithmsand content removal practices
are politically neutral.
Jennifer Wishon, CBN News, Washington.
- Thanks, Jennifer, Gordon back to you.
- Well, they're not gonna be able to prove
that it's content neutralbecause they've been
exercising editorial controlover content for some time.
And that will probably ratchetup before the 2020 elections
and it's going to get very political.
Just recently Amazonstarted taking down books
from their website basedon the content of the book,
that the book talks about howsomeone left the gay lifestyle
and became heterosexual.
So if we're going to seethis kind of content editing
on these sales platforms, onthese social media platforms,
well then yes, thegovernment does have to act.
First Amendment rights offree speech don't extend
to Facebook, they don't extend to Twitter,
they don't extend to allof the social media sites
but if they're going to have the monopoly
where it's the only place youcan get your views ever heard
well then the government needs to come in
and just like it regulatesall the utilities
are these now going to become a utility.
They regulate all theterrestrial broadcasters,
they regulate the phone companies,
so it's about time that some regulation
comes into being here sothat we do have a free
and open society.
